"Humans blindly follow a being they call god, which never makes her presence known… they follow something they want to believe in, yet cower when faced with a power they cannot comprehend. Their faith is a crutch—an excuse for their weakness. But me? I do not ask for faith. I do not hide in the heavens, silent and unseen. When I speak, the world trembles. When I reach out, I take what I desire. I am no distant god—they will know me, fear me, and in the end… they will bow."- Malum
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**Southern Tribe Village Center**
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Tengu's empty eyes glared right at Ikari's annoyed yet clearly frightened face. A gust of wind swept through the village, Tengu's voice was hoarse as he said. "Ikari… your orders were to retrieve our father's vessel and bring him back to our universe, and yet here I find you toying around. Why is that?".
Ikari scoffed, putting his hands in his pockets he said. "There shouldn't be any rush to free our mother from her seal in hell, figured I could have some fun after being trapped in that place for thirty eight years."
Jason remained on one knee, his vision grew blurry while he gripped his shoulder… the voices coming from Ikari and Tengu grew distant to Jason who had then fell to the ground, unconscious…
Tengu looked down, Distain all over his face when he said. "It's a wonder how this child has managed to hold father's possession off for this long… not to mention that only his consciousness remains inside of the boy's body."
A crease formed on Ikari's forehead, he asked. "His consciousness? You say'in that old man's keepin our pa's real body somewhere else?"
"I can tell by the fact that our father isn't at full power while his consciousness is inside our new brother's body… if it were, I've no doubt in my mind father would've fully resurrected by now."
Over to the left in the center of the southern tribe's village, General Asami's special division stood in fear. Watching the sight of the two demons converse…
The timid looking Hinari adjusted her black glasses, letting out heavy breaths when she asked senior lieutenant miller, "that man in with the mark on his forehead… he's one of the seven in our reports right? We can't do anything while the general is preoccupied with Kaida Masayoshi."
Suddenly, in an urgent the short black haired cadet Sidra Nohara said as sweat raced down her face. "Guys… something's- wrong!"
"Our task is to get Malum's vessel before these foes who've invaded our universe does… you kids stay back, I'm the only one permitted to fight alongside or in absence of the general." Senior lieutenant miller blurted out in a sweat, disregarding the words of Sidra. He raised his hands, making a hand seal readying his technique…
The urgency in sidra's voice grew, as she said. "I'm serious… you all need to-"
"?!, ?!, ?!, ?!"
Sidra flinched, wiping her cheek and looking down at her palm as she saw blood… everyone looked down at senior lieutenant miller's now severed hand, blood spilled out.
The masked Lieutenant Raiser Shouted, "SENIOR!!!"…
"Wh- What the hell?!"-Sidra
Junior lieutenant Hinari screamed, "AAAIIEEE!". Tengu and Ikari looked over to the black lotus special division unit. Ikari's eyes went wide as he said, "The Hell're they on about?"
Tengu's previously uncaring eyes also went wide. He looked down and saw the curse marks on Jason's body spreading even more, his eyes opened and took on a crimson color…
His voice was distorted, Malum's voice overlapped his own and spoke out. "There's no place for humans on the Devil's playground… remove yourselves at once."
Malum lifted himself up on one of Jason's arms.
"?!"-Malum
Malum had focused his attention on Tengu, who began charging chaos energy beams in his eyes and wasted no time to fire them downward at Malum…
The explosion covered the entire area, and destroyed all of the homes and stores in the southern tribe village's center.
The black lotus special division held on to their surroundings, and struggled to fight off the weight of the aftershock of Tengu's attack pushing them back… Hinari almost blew away, before senior lieutenant miller grabbed a hold of her hand.
Senior lieutenant shouted out, "SIDRA, GET THAT SEALING TECHNIQUE READY, DRAIN AS MUCH CHAOS ENERGY FROM MALUM AS YOU CAN, UNTIL THE GENERAL GETS HERE!"
Sidra responded, "If you have time to tell me how to do my job, then how about you do yours!", Sidra managed to keep herself grounded as she planted her hands on the desolated ground, a giant black rose pattern sprouted across the entire area.
From the smoke from Tengu's eye beams, emerged Tengu and Ikari who leaped into the sky, still focusing on the ground.
Tengu's face froze up when he and Ikari felt a spike of chaos energy that emerged from behind them.
A red sparking straight line had formed in front of Tengu, he reached in and pulled out a long crimson energy coated sword with red lightning crackling from it. "Heavenly Sword Of The Gathering Clouds"…
He raised his hand in an attempt to swing the blade down through Malum. but before his arm came down, Malum gazed at Tengu's arm as it was severed by an invisible slashing attack.
Tengu and ikari's eyes went wide, Malum had flew straight at Tengu…
Tengu had readied himself making the necessary hand seals to summon his inner domain, but before he could finish…
A portal had opened on his stomach which Malum flew right in to, canceling his technique…
Ikari said, "what the hell?!". He wasn't fast enough to react to the second portal opening up above him as Malum flew out of, with a scythe which he used to slice right through Ikari's shoulder.
"Damn old man!"- Ikari
Malum had looked over his shoulder, sensing a spike in spiritual energy behind him. It was senior lieutenant miller, whose hands were above and below each other and a spiraling blue drill of spiritual energy manifested in between his hands.
Malum thought to himself, "he's that senile old man from that group down there… he's the only one attacking while the others sit there trying to suppress my power, until that woman from the golden age shows up."
Senior lieutenant miller had fired the spiraling drill of spirit energy toward Malum, which he had blocked with Jason's arm… "?!"-Malum
The drill had begun digging into Jason's arm, tengu watched the scene unfold and thought to himself. ("That attack… it's even piercing through father's special skin. I understand that it's still the child's body but, to think this sorcerer has power that could pierce through father's skin? It's safe to assume that the black haired woman down there is also using that spell to increase the output of damage in his abilities").
Malum then summoned a black hole on Jason's arm, which sucked in the drilling attack and stretched out the black hole to redirect it toward miller…
"So much for that!"-Miller
Malum had threw Ikari toward miller, but miller had made a hand seal and in an instant teleported behind Malum…
"?!"-Malum, Malum had focused his attention to Tengu's forehead mark which read "Pride" as it started glowing a silver hue.
Tengu pointed his index finger out which charged up a grey beam of chaos energy and white sparks of electricity cackled around it while he fired straight at Malum.
Malum disappeared before the beam even came close to reaching him, and appeared behind senior lieutenant miller, grabbing onto the back of his black robes and held him in front of Tengu's beam.
"ACK!"-Miller, he coughed blood. The other members of the black lotus division shouted, "SENIOR!!!"… Malum had held miller up by his mouth, tears ran down his face as he trembled with blood leaking out of his wound in his chest.
Malum then threw him down toward the special division, he traveled like a bullet until Malum had stomped him into the ground.
The battlefield fell silent, Lieutenant Hinari tougetsu held her hands over her mouth… she trembled as sweat dripped down her face like a waterfall. Cadet Sidra turned her face over to her right, her mouth was open but no words came out, her black eyes shook.
Lieutenant raiser's face mask fell down revealing his scarred mouth as he said, "S-senior miller… sh- shit!".
Malum looked down at the unresponsive corpse of senior lieutenant miller, seconds before he diverted his eyes back up toward Tengu and Ikari.
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**Southern tribe, sector c, inside Asami's soul space**
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The blood strings from the towering phantom of Asami held onto Kaida's limbs, her skin looked as if it was almost a skeleton. Kaida let out ragged breaths…
Suddenly, the space around her collapsed. Before she knew it, she was brought back to reality… Asami had released her soul space, and Kaida dropped to her knees, her appearance appeared unscathed as the nightmare realm still left an affect on her body.
Asami slowly walked up to Kaida, dragging her long black katana on the ground as she gave Kaida a look of pity, while Kaida's eyes remained fixed on the ground beneath her.
Asami had come to a stop, sensing the unmeasurable amount of chaos energy in the air… though one of the three signatures was different from the other two, her eyes went wide, not mistaking this familiar feeling.
She gritted her teeth, malice dripped from her tongue as she looked over her shoulder toward the direction of the center section of the village and said, "Malum!"…
Her spiritual energy spiked, and she flew away like a blurring black and red bullet. Kaida remained on her knees, looking down at the ground, her limp body barely moved, but she muttered up the energy to say in a hushed whisper, "i- I don't sense Aria's presence… General Asami just said, Malum… I, I need to move my body, her soul space manipulated my mind into believing what was happening to me as real."
"I, I need to meditate, and gather up enough spirit energy so I can heal, and get to Jason."
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**Southern Tribe, Village Center**
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Ikari had clasped his hands, and slowly separated them while a round black and red void manifested, His wrath mark glowed red.
Malum looked up at the fury etched on Ikari's face and said, "you may be the most powerful of my children, and amongst your siblings… but your mind is still premature, and if you don't have the brain to back up the immeasurable power you wield, you'll never surpass your siblings."
Suddenly, time and space around them had frozen… but tengu and Ikari still moved their heads, looking at Malum who made a hand seal and chanted, "The nine hells".
The space around them shifted, as if Malum had summoned another universe topping the main universe…
The landscape changed, Ikari and Tengu were surrounded by rocky and molten terrains with oceans of lava.
Tengu thought, ("This is father's domain, nine of the ten layers of Hell… only his consciousness resides within the child's body, which means that he's not at full power now, if he were in his body and summoned his true domain of "the ten hells" we'd have already died immediately upon entering").
Ikari looked up, a giant flaming meteor the size of a whole planet had came hurdling down toward him and Tengu. Ikari coated his arm in a blade-like hellfire which he swiped down and sliced through the meteor.
Debris from the meteor scattered and hit the ground, and shook the entire space around them. "Where is pa hiding?" Ikari asked Tengu, to which he replied, "pay attention… he's merged himself with the land around us, his body is now one with the terrain."
"Tch, well damn…"-Ikari
Malum watched Ikari and Tengu, and thought to himself. ("It would be in my best interest to hurry up and finish these two off… my control over the boy's body is weakening quite a lot, must be the doing of my use of big attacks, and the woman's sealing technique outside of this space… seem's it's range of effect reaches across dimensions.")
————————————————————————**Southern Tribe, Center Section, Outside Malum's Nine Hells**
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Junior Lieutenant Hinari fell on her bottom, her hands continued trembling at the sight of her senior's corpse laid in front of her…
She let out ragged breaths, her heart thumped in her chest. Cadet Sidra focused on the expanded black and red rectangular barrier, holding up the black lotus seal on the area which was weakening Malum's control over Jason's body, and transferring spiritual energy into his fragmented soul…
Lieutenant raiser looked up at General Asami descending down from the sky and onto the ground, his voice was shaken and urgent as he said. "General… senior miller, he was ki-"
Before he finished, Asami rushed straight toward the barrier, and shifted her gaze over to the kneeling cadet Sidra and she said, "Focus on destroying the barrier, once the barrier shatters, I'll kill Malum."
The black lotus special division all looked at their general in surprise, and confusion. Sidra spoke out, "B- but general, senior miller has been killed… and if I destroy this barrier, Malum along with those other two demons could slaughter us all-"
Asami glared into sidra's eyes, her voice was still calm and sounded as if she needed to clear it. She responded to her cadet and said, "there's no point in worrying for miller any longer… worrying for the dead won't bring him back, stop fixating on a corpse and do as you're told cadet!"
?!, ?!, ?!
Sidra gulped, and nodded as she left one palm on the ground and used the other to make a hand seal. The black lotus mark around the area shifted, and morphed into black butterfly wings…
Asami's hand clutched the sheath of her black blade. Her eyes were bloodshot, no thoughts other than slaughtering Malum had crossed her mind…
A voice played in her head, almost blocked out by her thirst for blood. ("MAMA… THE BAD MAN'S HERE, I'M SCARED!!!")…
The image of her six year old daughter's body buried underneath the rubble 1,000 years ago was stained in blood in her mind, while she gritted her teeth…
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**Hell Universe, Purgatory Pod Prison**
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Selene had continued the sacrifice ritual, steadying herself as the divine energy rapidly sapped from her body… she grabbed onto Aaliyah as their bodies were enveloped in a black Smokey substance.
Then they immediately reappeared outside of the red pods which contained them, Selene exclaimed. "It worked… I, I added the function of teleportation in between two compressed points in Spacetime into my soul space."
Aaliyah asked, "and what about your divine energy?". Selene gave her a glance, and replied. "It's gone… can't access it anymore, but I did the ritual knowing the costs, no point in grieving now."
Selene walked over to the pod containing Kairei and placed her hand on it, and in the blink of an eye Kairei vanished and reappeared next to Selene and Aaliyah.
Selene then walked over to the right, and said. "Now let's find a way out of here."
The three didn't walk that far, before Aaliyah stopped and looked to her right, she suddenly let out a gasp, and held her hand over her mouth. Selene and Kairei stopped, and Selene asked. "What is it Ma?"
Sudden tears fell out of Aaliyah's eyes, as she dropped to the ground… Selene looked at the pod in front of them, and her face went pale.
Kairei looked at the person inside the pod, the woman had white short hair, her black robe was torn and covered the upper part of her backstory and chest, she had long lines going down her eyes and to her cheeks.
Kairei asked, "who is this woman?". Selene took a moment before she replied, and said. "Auntie Sachiko." Her voice was unusually shaken. Memories of her childhood flooded her mind and remembered being raised by the woman in substitute of Aaliyah, as she said. "You're alive."
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**Southern Tribe, Center Section**
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The back and red rectangular barrier grew cracks in it, it became unstable as the space around it began to distort. And in just a few moments, the barrier shattered… Malum, Ikari, and Tengu had emerged.
Both Ikari and Tengu were panting and covered in blood and scratches. Malum remained untouched, though his exhaustion was obvious… "Dammit, the kid's waking up".
Asami wasted no time, and immediately dashed toward Malum. She unsheathed her blade and it pierced right through Jason's chest.
Ikari said, "it's that woman from earlier." Asami let out feral growls as she pulled her blade out from Jason's chest with his blood latching onto her blade.
Asami backflipped into the air and sent a flying blood slash toward them, which hit jason right on his back, and sent him into the ground.
His eyes went back to their normal dark grey color, as he jolted awake while his curse marks retracted, Though he fell back asleep.
Tengu looked at Jason's body and grunted, "Now's the time!" He rushed down toward Jason's body, Asami attempted to intercept him but Ikari had already reached her and blocked her blade with his arm.
"That's enough outta you." Ikari kicked Asami away as she slid on the ground toward the special division, stopping herself with her blade.
Tengu picked Jason up, and looked over toward everyone and while he opened up the black gateway to the hell universe, he said. "I commend you all for your strength, though I think it best that you stay out of our way from here on out."
Ikari and Tengu entered the gateway, as it closed behind them. The three remaining special division members had rushed straight to General Asami's side. Asami's wounds began to heal with red swirling spirit energy.
Asami had frustration painted all over her haunting expression, as she punched the ground and shouted, "DAMMIT!".
It was when Asami stood on her feet that Kaida appeared in front of her, her face was bruised and one of her eyes closed and wrapped in bandages as she said. "Miss Asami, I'm sure you're aware that whatever they're planning won't be good for our universe."
She continued, "I'm willing to forgive you for invading my village, if you'll agree to aid me in taking out these threats and rescuing Jason, Aria, Miss Aaliyah, and Miss Selene."
Asami grunted, she gazed at Kaida's crimson colored eyes and responded. "Where do you get off patronizing me child? You're still just an immature brat, I couldn't care less whether you forgive me or not."
Asami began walking off, until she was stopped in her tracks by Kaida who continued, "I may be an immature child, but I can tell you this much… you're only after Jason because you want revenge on Malum right?! How is that any more mature for an adult like you to let vengeance blind you to what's a stake for the world?!"
Asami looked over her shoulder and asked, "what good will rescuing those criminals do for the world then?… tell me that, girl."
Kaida's voice grew more stern as she replied, "their goal, although I don't know what it is just yet… I can tell you that it's probably equally as bad as what the grand elder might have planned for the world, so if we don't get Jason and everyone else back, this world is even more screwed than it already is… you and the other supreme generals already distrust the grand elder, and as someone who fought alongside him against Malum in the blood war 1,000 years ago I'm sure you have a good idea of what he's planning, and you disagree with it don't you?"
Asami turned around, and sheathed her blade. Kaida continued as she walked closer to Asami, "we could work together with the other two supreme generals, and kill these demons who threaten our world and stop their plan regarding Jason, cause if anything their plan may be benefiting the grand elder in his plan… and he's been really quiet in the last few months. I am honestly begging you, to help me… please."
Asami took a moment, and saw the spark of fire in Kaida's crimson eyes… and begun to walk off, she said aloud. "Fine girl, we'll call Yaku and Kojiro to meet us here, but don't think for even a second that Malum's vessel is off the hook, even if he's your friend, he's still a threat to our world and I will kill him once we take out the seven."
Kaida walked off, but replied loud enough for Asami to hear her say, "That's fine with me… and if you threaten my friends, don't think for a second that I won't fight you with all I have to protect them, remember that general."
Continued in chapter 89…